No. It's turning into an expanionistic embodiment of everything bad about the British Empire up to and including a mega-version of the Industrial Revolution. With a little side of what Mosley's Britain would look like.

They're much-much smarter than the Sovius.

2. Has Princess Marie been subverted like her brother?

No. She and her forces are left completely unchanged--which may have been a mistake.

3. Is it gonna be up to Legendary and Julius to save the day by getting all the help they can find?

Legendary is attempting to rally the forces of the Empire in all of its Arthurian glory based on ideals of chivalry, country, and brotherhood. Julius is attempting to rally them around revolutionary grounds so the two are pretty much Lawful vs. Chaotic Good just makng things even more problematic.

I would argue that Legendary more closely resembles De Montfort or Prince Rupert, whereas "don't call me Prince" Julius arguably resembles Lord Stirling, the only known Peer to serve with the Continental Army during the American War of Independence.

Founder of H.E.R.O.I.C, Complimenter-in-Chief, Co-Arch Henchman to the Grin, Servant of the Hoff!

Sometimes, in ways its residents don't expect. In the six years it has been active in the Nexus stage, it has overthrown dozens of powerful dictatorships and contributed to the collapse of a superpower. Far be it from the initial view of Prime Minister Percival that it was the most backwater world in the Nexus, it has conclusively changed the course of geopolitics in the Nexus forever. Not the least bit by destroying all notion forever of Imperial Apologetica.

For those interested, for God knows what reason, in incorporating political science into their games, this is basically the Nexus theory that reality has to operate on the "Warhammer Principle." That giant exploitative empires are the only means of protecting the common citizen from the countless monsters, horrors, gods, and so on to be found in the Nexus. It was established, of course, by Earth-000 and has been a model followed ever since.

The discovery that not only could Earth-0 defend itself with sufficiently powerful Persons of Mass Destruction but fight back has changed everything forever. Now, many worlds who have paid vast tribute to more powerful states are questioning their commitment. It was always a pretext but it has never been quite so exposed as one until the collapse of the Sovius Empire.

This has triggered a wave of many worlds wanting to throw off their shackles, be they worlds under the control of the Caliphate's Merchant Houses or even the (until recently) relatively benign territorial-ism of the Camelot Parliament. Unfortunately, this is a desire which has come perhaps several centuries too late as all of these Empires were quite thorough in dismantling the possibility of rebellion before it was a glimmer of an idea in the minds of its citizens.

The Free Brethren Alliance is, as a result, the best thing that could be come up with in the meantime. Artfully described as an army of thieves and harlots, its members gleefully correct its detractors as saying they are a NAVY of thieves and harlots. The remnants of a hundred crushed political movements, criminal gangs slightly less repellant than the next, and a surprising amount of defectors from virtually every military in the Nexus with more members growing every day.

The Free Brethren Alliance are pirates, first and foremost, with their political activities coming secondary to simply attempting to keep up with the massive amount of resources they need to steal in order to keep their modest (but surprisingly large to anyone who isn't a paranoid lunatic like Grand Admiral Marie) military machine going. Having only been created a few months ago, or more precisely organized, its establishment of supply lines will be the deciding factor if the piratical force remains anything more than an annoyance to the various empires it opposes.

The Free Brethren Alliance desires nothing less than the end of the Empire system and the establishment of worlds being allowed to choose their own rule. Its primary goal is the destruction of One's control over the Star Kingdom but its members include many who also put JINN, Sovius warlords, and Torment on their list. They've had modest success so far, eliminating three of the Sovius' worst malefactors and demonstrating they're a force to be reckoned with--albeit one which is semi under the control of its leaders at the best of times.

At heart, the pirate roots of the Free Brethren Alliance are more than just motifs and it is only through the extreme application of Magnificent B******dy by its leaders (Pirate X, The Commandant, and Bonnie Annie, Wendy Mitchell, Goldtooth Roger, Lord Stephens, and The Revolutionary) mixed with profit they've managed to sew this alliance together. In short, it's much like an actual revolutionary movement only with more Arrs and Space Plank Walking.

The group is presently scouring the Death Zone from its base in Asteroid Cove for Nexus-powered heroes, artifacts, and allies they hope will be able to turn the tide in this conflict. At present, all they can do is impede the expansion of the empires around them--let alone stop them and they need miracles or new sufficiently charismatic leaders to turn the group into something truly heroic. They're in dire need of Luke Skywalker, or ironically enough, a even more Scoundrel-like Han Solo to save the day.

1. I welcome other people to develop them but basically they're programs born and raised in the Grid who have discovered their "humanity" and started using memories and hidden caches of virtual reality to enjoy life. There's whole regions now where these programs can live out lives as human beings and start recovering their former selves. One can't eliminate them directly so he's sent hunter-killer programs to enforce a digital martial law on the places he finds. Mostly because he's worried if he destroys them outright, he's just going to potentially make the situation worse.

2. The Army of Free Programs and Renegade, by contrast, those directly devoted to one's destruction. They attempt to hijack the information network, download information about One's intentions, destroy his brainwashing centers, shut down power centers to his death machines, and generally weaken his hold over the many. The Renegade believes that people will be able to adjust to being digital lifeforms while others think he runs the risk of driving everyone hooked up to the Collective Insane.

3. More precisely, its a city within the Network, of millions of minds all existing in the equivalent of a cube-sized platform.

Phrozen wrote:So, Legendary is all Edward I while Prince Julius is going all Simon de Montfort or Cromwell.

The conflict between the two has been coming for quite some time and is based down on a fundamental irony. Legendary wants to repair the system and, as a commoner knight, is perfectly poised to embody everything that's best about the System and reform it to its peak potiential. Julius, born as a noble, thinks the system is just not worth rebuilding and wants to tear it down by its roots to build something better. Legendary thinks this will potentially kill a lot of people (and it will) while Julius thinks its worth fighting for (and it is).

Hmmm ... so what they need is someone capable of negotiating a truce between them, a truce that lays foundations upon which one might build a Peace with Honour and a Better World; it has to be someone with the soul of a pirate, tempered by the discipline of a paragon but one not weighted towards neither extreme.

Expertise with dysfunctional families and powered armour might also be appreciated.

"Calling Captain Carpenter, Calling Captain Jack Carpenter ... "

" ... and the closest warrior therapist."

The Abritrator: "Brother-Captain, shall we be on our way in THAT direction?"

Captain Carpenter: "Ace? PUNCH IT."

(aside) "Are you a qualified therapist?"

The Arbitrator: "I have no degree, but can cite considerable experience in the field; when your wolves threaten to turn howling mad one learns quickly and thoroughly how best to return insanity to the realms of the functional. Tell me, please, how does your culture practice psychophrenological analysis?"

Doctor Hu: "D----- Jack, he's a headcase, he'll fit right in with the shrinks."

S.O Kalistia (posthumous): "Captain, this is clearly a choice between a proudly anachronistic warrior monk and letting Doctor Hu play a delicate role in crucial peace negotiations."

I welcome other people to develop them but basically they're programs born and raised in the Grid who have discovered their "humanity" and started using memories and hidden caches of virtual reality to enjoy life.

A few thoughts on further development; what if The Renegades are the strongest spirits currently kept in those databanks where ONE likes to keep those ghosts which might foul up the working of his great machine too blissed out to notice their current and rather awful condition - that is to say they are those who have noticed that life is one MMORPG, either because the local moderator's tastes don't match their own or because they were able to spot some clue to their existence and managed to follow the rabbit to the logical conclusion.

To be precise The Renegades are those who came to the realisation that life was one giant MMORPG and that they were ghosts in some infinite machine and cried "AWESOME" instead of going Lovecraft-crazy from the revelation or getting ANGRY enough to break their chains and then start breaking their cage to pieces; this tends to result in The Renegade running around as though they possess the Cheat Codes to reality (or perhaps as if they're the only one in Multiplayer who possesses singe-player Plot Armour):- unsurprisingly this tends to wreak havoc on the system, which tends to result in the Renegade being discretely removed by The Mod Squad, but some renegades are shrew and sneaky enough to keep things on the down-low.

They're still hunted, because for reasons that should be readily apparent ONE regards the standing temptation to use the cheat-codes to reality as irresistible.

The Free Renegade Army, on the other hand, chose to swallow the Red Pill and have been doing their best to work out how to release their fellow minds without sending them stark staring CRAZY and sending the system into uncontrollable meltdown, sending billions to needless final deaths; it's an uphill struggle because ONE does not give up his secrets AT ALL and took care to make sure that you had to be looking at the system from the outside to spot the ones he was obliged to work into his spook-server (and it's impossible for even Free Renegades to leave the system without help from the Outside) - unfortunately for ONE Video Game Girl got involved at some point and managed to open his carefully-planned closed-circuit set-up just a crack, looking like Felicia Day cosplaying as a Next-Gen Captain N all the while.

This is only part of the reason ONE regards her as his archnemesis.

Digitopolis is probably the single biggest result; it's effectively somewhere a bunch of MMORPG characters have decided to settle down to become Sims, in such numbers that they began to build a SimCity all their own; somewhat ironically, with the exception of a few cosmetic peculiarities only outsiders seem to notice (or rather which only outsiders seem to comment on) and whenever the residents need to Get Dangerous in order to throw off ONEs latest hack, it's heck of a lot more normal than almost anywhere else in the Age of Wonders setting.

The Free Renegades are looking for the nice, quiet kind of normal you don't really find in Reality, at least not during the Age of Wonders.

Founder of H.E.R.O.I.C, Complimenter-in-Chief, Co-Arch Henchman to the Grin, Servant of the Hoff!

By the way Charles, good work on The Free Brethren Alliance; I'm willing to bet that at least one or more of The Brethren-Captains are a descendent in some degree of Mrs and Mr Cosmic (This might be especially amusing if it were Lord Stephens: "Mamma, Pappa! I can explain ..." "Son, don't worry, we're proud of you despite your ... aristocracy" "Our son, the pirate captain!" <SNIFFS> "We always knew you had it in you!" "ANNIE!" "Heya grammy, grampy!" - all parties keep one hand on their purses until the hugging is done, but enjoy the free hugs anyway).

Founder of H.E.R.O.I.C, Complimenter-in-Chief, Co-Arch Henchman to the Grin, Servant of the Hoff!

Libra wrote:By the way Charles, good work on The Free Brethren Alliance; I'm willing to bet that at least one or more of The Brethren-Captains are a descendent in some degree of Mrs and Mr Cosmic (This might be especially amusing if it were Lord Stephens: "Mamma, Pappa! I can explain ..." "Son, don't worry, we're proud of you despite your ... aristocracy" "Our son, the pirate captain!" <SNIFFS> "We always knew you had it in you!" "ANNIE!" "Heya grammy, grampy!" - all parties keep one hand on their purses until the hugging is done, but enjoy the free hugs anyway).

Have we unofficially decided that Mr. & Mrs. Cosmic's kids were basically expies of the Stark kids? (Except you know, being raised in a semi-deranged Chaotic Good household rather than a humble Lawful Good one.)

Also, I'd like to mention that Lord Stephens is their adopted child, his real father being an old deceased frenemy of the Cosmics. That's right, he's the Theon analogue. Oh and the illegitimate one is Mrs. Cosmic's, not her husband's.

Have we unofficially decided that Mr. & Mrs. Cosmic's kids were basically expies of the Stark kids? (Except you know, being raised in a semi-deranged Chaotic Good household rather than a humble Lawful Good one.)

So in other words nothing LIKE The Stark Kids?

That actually sounds like a pretty neat idea, although it might be amusing to depict the 'Cosmic Family' as owing something to the Skywalker/Solo clan (as opposed to the 'plain' Skywalker lineage since the descendants of 'The God Without Eyes' seem to have that particular skeleton lurking in their family closet, his name is 'Great-great-actually he's a Jerk-uncle Uncle Rozarak' and BOY does he have a story to tell you - oh good grief I'm seeing Rozarak trying to pass himself off as Obi-Wan).*

*Someday I really must work out where The Immortals (AND Rozarak) sit relative to The Four that Would be Free on the Middle-Zoth timeline ...

Founder of H.E.R.O.I.C, Complimenter-in-Chief, Co-Arch Henchman to the Grin, Servant of the Hoff!

Have we unofficially decided that Mr. & Mrs. Cosmic's kids were basically expies of the Stark kids? (Except you know, being raised in a semi-deranged Chaotic Good household rather than a humble Lawful Good one.)

So in other words nothing LIKE The Stark Kids?

That actually sounds like a pretty neat idea, although it might be amusing to depict the 'Cosmic Family' as owing something to the Skywalker/Solo clan (as opposed to the 'plain' Skywalker lineage since the descendants of 'The God Without Eyes' seem to have that particular skeleton lurking in their family closet, his name is 'Great-great-actually he's a Jerk-uncle Uncle Rozarak' and BOY does he have a story to tell you - oh good grief I'm seeing Rozarak trying to pass himself off as Obi-Wan).*

*Someday I really must work out where The Immortals (AND Rozarak) sit relative to The Four that Would be Free on the Middle-Zoth timeline ...

What was that about The God Without Eyes and the Cosmics?

And I figured the Stark comparison because their daughter Circe was married off to the one of Celestial Lions as well as a son murdered trying to rescue the former.

(Which Mrs. Cosmic plans to pay Star Lion back by slicing off her tail and strangling her with it.)